


In Bloom

by kaeorin



Series: Loki's Lullabies [78]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Avenger Loki (Marvel), Avenger Reader (Marvel), Comfort, F/M, Flowers, Fluff, Gardens & Gardening, Loki (Marvel) Feels, Loki (Marvel) Needs a Hug, Nature, Nature Magic, Reader-Insert
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-12
Updated: 2020-06-12
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:35:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24673201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaeorin/pseuds/kaeorin
Summary: In hopes of cheering Loki a bit, you invite him along with you to a botanical garden. You couldn’t have known how it would affect him.
Relationships: Loki (Marvel)/Reader
Series: Loki's Lullabies [78]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1678240
Comments: 18
Kudos: 230





	In Bloom

Even you had to admit that it was a long shot.

Loki wasn’t feeling his best. He made that abundantly clear in the way that he retreated to his private quarters. The others didn’t seem to notice or mind when Loki stopped showing up in the common areas of the Tower, but you did. You liked him. It was hard to put your finger on exactly why, but you knew that you liked him. He was nice to be around. Even though he could be grumpy and he lashed out at the others when they looked at him wrong, he rarely did any of that to you. You always took that as a sign that maybe he didn’t dislike being around you. Oh, sure, if you irritated him, he could give you a Look that would wither stone, but he never snapped at you or tried to drive you away. 

Part of you imagined that he liked the way you kind of warded Thor off. You loved Thor too, of course, but it wasn’t hard to understand why his ebullience would have bothered Loki. Thor loved his brother and wasn’t shy about that in front of the others, which made the others’ wary reactions feel that much colder, even to you. But Thor rarely stuck around long when you were with Loki. He might stumble across the two of you, but he was quick to make himself scarce again, often giving you a wink that made it clear that he had the wrong idea about Loki’s feelings for you.

Loki had been especially withdrawn for the last few days. The one night that you happened to find him sitting alone in the living room, you’d tried to check in on him. He wasn’t much of a talker when he was in one of these moods, but the stillness in the Tower must have stirred something in him, because he told you (without even the barest hint of reluctance in his voice) about his mother and how her loss still felt like a gaping wound in his soul. As he talked about her, his face softened with affection and you watched his memories flit across his features. You’d wanted to fling your arms around him and crush him against your chest, but that would have been too much.

When you reached for his hand, he let you take it.

Your plan for the day was the long shot. After he’d told you about Frigga and her wisdom and her great sprawling gardens, you’d done a quick search for botanical gardens near you. Surely Midgardian flowers couldn’t compare to the ones in Frigga’s gardens, but you had to hope that they could help a little anyway. To your surprise, you found one not insanely far from the Tower and then sought out Tony’s help. He wasn’t one of Loki’s biggest fans, but he liked you well enough to do what he could for you. He arranged for a car to take you to the garden and even managed to reserve the gardens for an afternoon so you wouldn’t have to worry about other people making Loki uncomfortable. 

In retrospect, maybe you should have asked Loki to come with you before you did all that. The night before the car was set to arrive, you went to his door and knocked gently. Some small part of you half-hoped that he wouldn’t answer so he couldn’t turn you down right to your face, but before long, his door opened and he peered out at you. 

Spurred on by the question in his eyes, you hurried to get your words out. You stumbled here and there as you tried to explain what you’d done, and why, and how you knew that it wouldn’t give him back his mother but you wanted to try to get him out of the Tower for a while so he could try to get out of his head. To your horror, he mostly just looked confused. You weren’t making any sense at all. You drew in a shaky breath, let it out slowly.

“I’m sorry. Let me try again. I’ve been thinking about what you said about your mom and her flowers. There’s this grand conservatory not too far from here. They have all kinds of plants and flowers. I know they aren’t the same as the ones that she grew, but I thought they might cheer you up a little anyway? I’m going tomorrow afternoon, and I’d really like it if you joined me?” Lord, you felt like a teenager trying to ask her crush on a date. But it wasn’t a date. It was one coworker inviting another coworker to go on an outing, that’s all.

Loki was quiet for a while. When you felt his gaze on your face, you looked up at him and tried to smile. You hated that you felt so silly and nervous right now, but you had to trust that he’d understand you weren’t afraid of him. You spent too much time together for him to still think that, right? You wanted to keep talking, to fill the silence with rushed assurances that he didn’t have to go with you, or that it was just a thought you’d had, or that you were sorry for even asking him, but you held your tongue. Finally he lowered his head and ran his fingers through his hair. 

“I’ll go,” he said. He didn’t sound thrilled about it, but you knew him well enough to know that if he truly didn’t want to go, he would never have agreed to it. You felt yourself smile a little bit wider and resisted the urge to grab his hands and kiss him. 

That would _definitely_ have given him the wrong idea.

Your excitement and nervousness made it hard to sleep that night, but you woke up feeling good. Even if Loki changed his mind and backed out now, you were still looking forward to the garden itself. You got ready for the day and then headed downstairs to the kitchen. To your surprise, Loki was already sitting at the table ignoring a cup of tea as he read a book. He didn’t look up at you when you came in, so you took that as a sign to leave him be. You made yourself some coffee and put some bread into the toaster for breakfast. You were so squirmy inside that you could probably do without breakfast, but maybe that wasn’t smart.

“Are we still going today?” His voice made you flinch a little bit, but you tried to cover that by turning around to look at him. 

“Yes! As long as you still want to. _I’m_ going, for sure, and I’d still love it if you come with me! The car should be here in about an hour, I think. I’ll double-check that with Tony.”

“Stark is coming?” His brow furrowed a bit and something like worry crept into his eyes. Maybe you panicked a little at the thought that Loki might back out, so you took a few quick steps closer to the table.

“No, it’s just us. He just helped me set things up. He got us a driver so we wouldn’t have to waste time taking the subway and then a bus all the way out there. And so I didn’t have to drive through city traffic.” You were a little embarrassed by how unwilling you were to drive in the city. You were part of a team that regularly faced down pure evil and you were unnerved by a few honking horns? You felt a self-deprecating dismissal of yourself take shape on your tongue, but you held it back. It’d only make him feel like he had to reassure you that, no, you were very brave and that plenty of superheroes disliked traffic. 

Loki’s eyes weighed heavy on your face for a little while, and then he went back to his book. You scarfed down your breakfast and went to check in with Tony.

Before long, you made it. The drive out there was a little uncomfortable, sitting in silence with Loki. Each time it got to be too much, you turned to him and tried to make conversation—asking about his mother’s flowers, talking about your own black thumb, thanking him for coming with you—and he was relatively accommodating, but you kept getting the sense that he’d rather just sit quietly. When you finally pulled up in front of the entrance to the gardens, you took a moment to be amazed at the size of the parking lot—and the emptiness. You thanked the driver and reminded him of your itinerary, and he drove away again, leaving the two of you standing at the front doors. 

You checked in with a bored-looking lady who quickly ran through the rules. Don’t touch the plants. Stay on the cobbled paths. Don’t climb anything, don’t drop anything. No picnics, no running, no weapons. When she was finished, she asked if you’d require a tour guide. You looked questioningly at Loki, who shook his head. Maybe the lady looked more than a little relived as she handed you a little pamphlet and then gestured towards the doors leading to the garden.

At long last, you were there. Your attention was mostly split pretty evenly between your surroundings and Loki. The flowers were beautiful. At first, you were hesitant to spend too long in one place, lest Loki grow impatient, but sometimes you couldn’t help it. It had been a long, long time since you’d seen this much greenery in one place. In the city, you were lucky to see a bit of open grass anywhere outside of Central Park. You drank in the sight like you needed it to sustain you through a few more years of city-living. The sun was bright and warm on your skin, but not uncomfortable. The day was practically perfect. You kept looking over at Loki, desperate to have someone to share this joy with.

At first, he was reserved as always. He kept his face neutral as he walked with you, and only stopped infrequently. But the beauty of the gardens must have started to warm him, because sometimes when he caught you looking at him, he’d smile. Before long, you caught him smiling even when he didn’t know that you were looking. He touched some of the flowers gently, almost reverently, and the sight of his fingers caressing the petals did strange things to you. Once, you turned around and saw him leaning forward to smell a flower. His hair hid most of his face from your view, but the sight was so imbued with peace and contentment that it stole your breath away.

“Beautiful...” You whispered without really meaning to. Of course he heard you. He turned his head to give you a quizzical look even as he straightened once again. You felt your eyes go wide. Could you cover your mistake? You bit your lip for a moment and then nodded towards the flower he’d just been examining. “The flower. This whole place. It’s beautiful.”

There was skepticism in his face that told you that you hadn’t fooled him for a second, but he did nod at you in agreement. “It’s a pity that more people don’t come here.”

Ah. You felt your cheeks grow warm as you ducked your head. So he’d noticed the emptiness. “They do. Or they might? I, um...didn’t want you to have to deal with stupid people like the ones who gape at you on the streets, so I might have gotten Tony to...sort of reserve this place just for us today.” It hadn’t occurred to you until right this very minute that being seen in a garden of lovely flowers might have been good for Loki’s public image. Oops. 

You kept your eyes averted from his face for a while, at least until you could regain control of your blushing. It wasn’t hard for you, most of the time, to get a pretty good idea of what he was thinking just by looking at his face, and you were afraid of what you might see there. Anyway, you knew he could read you like a book even without making eye contact.

He was quiet for a long time. Just as you were about to give in to the temptation to rush ahead to the next section of flowers, he cleared his throat and stepped a little closer to you so he could take your hand. His touch was gentle, just like when he touched the flower. “I had no idea you knew it bothered me.”

It was difficult, but you did your best not to give away just how his hand made your heart soar. “Of course I know. You’ve been on the team for years now, but idiots still treat you like you’re still who you were before. They don’t know _anything_. Most of the time I want to grab them and shake them and tell them about all the good you’ve done for them.” It was selfish, but it was true. Loki often joined you on walks through the city, and people still crossed the street to avoid him. You didn’t catch the way Loki looked at you like he was seeing you for the first time.

That conversation changed things. The mood between you lightened. It was enough to make you realize that his silence on the ride out here was possibly rooted in his nervousness about the crowds. Loki was brave, and he was resilient, but a person could only withstand so many nervous looks before it started to wear at them, after all. When he learned that this place was for the two of you alone, he started to laugh a little bit more. He didn’t hold fast to your hand the whole time, but he wasn’t shy about grabbing you to pull your attention to a certain bed of flowers, or a rabbit hiding under some bushes, or a fat bumblebee, drunk on nectar, lying peacefully on the petal of a flower as it rested up.

One of the last stops on the loop through the grounds was the Rose Garden. Rose bushes and plants surrounded a large conservatory, which promised many more varieties of roses inside. You’d always had a soft spot for roses. Who didn’t? They smelled so sweet, without being sickly: fresh and clean and lovely. And they were beautiful. You were more or less speechless as you flitted from plant to plant, taking in the sights and smells and beauty of them all as though you could tuck them inside your heart for safekeeping. Loki moved a little more slowly, so you kept circling back to rejoin him. As blissed-out as you were here, you still couldn’t miss the sadness that was creeping into his eyes as he regarded a bright pink flower. You took his hand and led him over to an iron bench in the middle of everything, and sat down.

“These were my mother’s favorites,” he said, gesturing at the garden around him. “Or something close to these, I mean. At the very heart of her gardens, she had a little nook enclosed with these grand old bushes that were older than Thor and I combined.”

“We don’t have to stay here—” you started, but he cut you off with a quick shake of his head.

“It’s alright. I want to.” He paused for a moment and looked down at your hands. You were still holding his, palms cupped together even as you fingers held him tightly. He pulled away just far enough to adjust his grip so he could interlace his fingers with yours. “It is bittersweet.”

The two of you sat quietly together for a while. The sun continued to shine. The breeze carried the scent of roses to you there on the bench. It was like the garden itself was trying to comfort him, like it was trying to wrap itself around him in an embrace. You could only hope that he noticed. Or that it helped.

After a long time, he let out a sigh that seemed to come from the very depths of his being and stood up. “What’s in there?” He gestured behind you, towards the large conservatory, and you flipped quickly through your pamphlet. 

“It’s...more roses. They keep the really old and rare ones in there because they have more control over the climate and pests and .” You ventured a look up at him, trying to figure out how he’d feel about going inside. He didn’t look... _opposed_ to it, anyway. “Do you...want to go see?” You would have understood if he said no. If being out here was enough to bring up sad memories of his mom, you certainly couldn’t have blamed him from wanting to venture into a building entirely dedicated to the same kinds of plants. But you really wanted to see them. Already you could feel yourself making plans to come back here on your own.

Soon, he flashed you a smile. “I do like rare and precious things. Shall we?”

Now, you knew next to nothing about rose varieties. You weren’t some kind of expert connoisseur. Thankfully, there was a little plastic holder on the wall near the door, which contained sheets of papers listing off the names and stories of each of the plants in here. You skimmed it as you wandered the path. It wasn’t surprising that a lot of these roses had been created by gardeners in love. People throughout history were willing to cross-breed and graft and cultivate fragile little plants in order to show their loved one what they meant to them. Maybe it was just your imagination, but you thought it smelled even sweeter in here. Maybe all that love and hard work had given these plants a lovelier scent. 

Things were mostly quiet. When you saw a particularly poignant story, you’d read it aloud to Loki, and he’d usually smile at you, but both of you were content to observe this all in silence. 

For a while. 

At one point, Loki pulled away from you and took several halting steps towards a large mounded bush covered with large pink flowers. He reached out to touch one, but jerked his hand away before he could. Something about his posture made it hard to look away. He was stiff, bewildered. When you went to stand beside him, he looked at you, and his eyes were wild.

“What—What is this one? Tell me what it says.” 

You skimmed through the paper, searching for the information about this plant, and read it aloud as soon as you found it. “It’s called the Apothecary’s Rose. It’s the oldest known rose variety. It’s been around for centuries, and in medieval times, they used it to cure a lot of different ailments.” You kind of skipped over the long list and searched for more relevant information. “Uh...it originated in ancient Persia...Crusaders probably brought it to Europe… It’s strong and healthy, typically, and prefers full sunlight?” You weren’t sure exactly what he was looking for here, but he was certainly affected by this plant, somehow.

He ran his fingers through his hair and turned to collapse onto the brickwork ledge that bordered the flowerbed. His hands were trembling. Before you could convince yourself not to, you sat down very close to him and held one of his arms to your chest in a kind of hug. Whatever was going on inside his head right now, it seemed intense. You wanted to brace him, support him somehow.

He started to laugh. It was quiet and still a little wild, but it sounded like genuine laughter. He closed his fingers around your knee and squeezed it tightly. “That is my mother’s plant,” he said at last. “That looks just like her favorite one. She had a whole section dedicated to these roses.”

It wasn’t that you didn’t believe him, necessarily, but you looked over your shoulder at the rose bush in question. “Are you _positive_?” It was from Earth. There weren’t any wild stories about its origins, at least nothing that could suggest it had traveled here from Loki’s home…

“Odin traveled. He roamed and conquered all of the realms. He could have brought it back from one of his trips. He was always bringing her plants.” He squeezed your knee even harder, and shook your leg a little like he was trying to make you listen to him. When you looked at his face, his eyes were glittering with unshed tears. This was really affecting him, wasn’t it? You felt yourself shift more towards believing him. What else could make him look like this? “I learned to walk in the shade of bushes like this one. She always smelled like this exact rose. I’d forgotten that. How could I have forgotten that?”

The air in the conservatory shifted, then, and wafted the strong, rich scent of the plant over the two of you. It smelled so sweet. You closed your eyes and let yourself imagine that perhaps you were in the presence of Queen Frigga. Maybe she was here to look after her son. You could only hope.

When you opened your eyes again, Loki was already looking at you. His face was bright, and open, and awed as he looked at you. You smiled back at him. You certainly hadn’t imagined anything like this while you worked to pull all of this together, but you were so happy that you did. 

Loki opened his mouth as though to speak, but then closed it again right away. He was speechless? Loki of the Silver Tongue was speechless. You felt your smile grow a little bit wider at that. You couldn’t blame him, but it still amused you a little. Without warning, his expression shifted from that gentle awe to something firmer, more decisive. He reached up to cup your face in his palms and pressed his lips against yours. Sweetly. Fiercely.

He stole your breath right there in the middle of heaven on Earth, and the branches of the rose bushes swayed gently in an otherworldly breeze.


End file.
